Give opportunities to respond in church

 Sam Harvey lectured a few weeks ago at the Laidlaw Evangelism 2015 course on

‘How do we Proclaim the Gospel Today?’

Church culture is a big one when it comes to ‘How do we Proclaim the Gospel Today?’. We need to build a culture in our church that reflects the heart to see people come to know Jesus. I think this is something that needs to be restored to our church culture or encouraged more in our church culture.

I felt the Lord gently challenge me and said, “Sam, in your church services, when is there an opportunity for people to cross the line?” 

I’m passionate about helping people journey towards Christ and I’m all about discipling people, but when do I just give a moment for this to happen? Why don’t I? The reason I don’t is that I’m scared about rejection, I’m scared about nothing happening, I’m scared that I’m going to look like a bit of a fool, I’m scared it’s going to be awkward.

But I really felt challenged to do it. And so I’ve decided that at the end of every service, regardless of what it’s on, I’m going to say “Hey, if you are here today and you want to say yes to Jesus”… and then I’ll grab my little Alpha booklet which will talk about being sorry for the things I’ve done, please forgive me, I thank you for what you’ve done on the cross, please come in to my life,..…and I’ll say, “If you want to pray that prayer with me, stick your hand up where you are at right now”.

I told our church that I’m going to ask people at the end of every service if they want to receive Jesus, so they know that when they bring a friend along, their friend will have an opportunity to respond. And I’ve trained the section leaders in our church to watch for hands so they can go up to person after the service.

I’ve been doing this over the last three or four months. And you know what? People are putting up their hands!

I want to build a culture in our church that reflects the heart to see people come to know Jesus. I got really convicted about regularly giving people an opportunity to respond, so now I do.